hellonearthblog.com reminds us that Acapulco is “no stranger to drug violence.” The once-popular tourist spot was ground zero when the intra-cartel offensive began in 2006. Surprisingly, the city has remained popular with local tourists “despite high profile murders and kidnappings, which usually occur on the outskirts of the tourist zone.” Maybe that’s because the over-supply has cratered prices. “Hotel occupancy in the tourist zones have recently been reported around 75%. The non-tourist zone has dipped to around 32%. Acapulco was listed as the 2nd most dangerous city in the world in 2012 by The Citizen Council for Public Safety and Justice.” The images of the killings—enabled by guns supplied via the Mexican Military and Police (via US sales)—-are schocking beyond belief (Google “Acapulco crime with safe search off.) Here’s a more visually palatable roundup of the effect of America’s War on Drugs on Elvis’ former hang . . .
In recent days violence has seen an uptick in Acapulco and surrounding areas.
June 30 – Two men, (one identified as Rafael Antonio Barreto Arizmendi, 22 years of age and a computer engineer, and an unidentified passenger who had tattoos on his arms) were killed and finished with grace shots in the head after being assaulted at the OXXO store in the town of Tunzingo, in the rural area of Acapulco. A gunman waited and shot them. Authorities counted 25 shell casings at the scene.
June 30 – Acapulco – Body found, unknown male, beside a stream in La Mica. The head of the body showed signs of having been crushed with a heavy rock. The victim was face down, wearing plaid bermuda white and a green shirt.
June 30 – 17 people were kidnapped from their homes in the municipality of Cocula, in northern Guerrero.
June 30 – A man was killed inside a small bakery in Acapulco. Gunmen arrived at the establishment and fired on those who were working at the time.
June 30 – Unknown subject shot and killed, age 20 to 25 years old, on Calle La Cima, a few meters from the Iguana Park in Acapulco.
June 30 – A young man between 16 and 18 years old was gunned down on the sidewalk in Acapulco.
July 1 – About 22:00 on July 1 on the federal highway Mexico – Acapulco, authorities found the body of a male person aged 25 to 30 years old. It was reported that armed men clashed, resulting in apparently two other people killed or injured, but minutes after the fact men arrived and took them to an unknown destination, leaving only one of the bodies at the scene.
July 3 – A young male was executed outside of a home.
July 4 – Eight young men were gunned down outside of Acapulco in the town of Coyuca de Benitez. Five were minors. The victims were stated to be huffing paint and glue at the time.
July 4 -In Acapulco a man was executed at his home. His body was found inside a car Chevrolet Cavalier.
July 6 – A group of armed men stormed into an upscale subdivision of the municipality of Acapulco, known as Las Gaviotas, leaving two soldiers dead, including a woman, and five seriously injured.
July 6 – In the village of El Quemado, in the rural municipality of Acapulco, on the old road to La Banana, found the body of Rodrigo Hernandez Tacuba. 24 year old male.
July 6 – About 23:00 in Colonia Juan R. Escudero in Acapulco, a man who was shot, and later died due to the severity of his injuries. Gunmen attacked him and then fled.
July 7 to 8 – Six people executed during Sunday and Monday. One victim was a man left hanging from the bridge that is located outside the Benito Juarez Primara Garita colony.
July 8 – The body of Juan Carlos Soberanis Altamirano, 18 year old student, was found dead in Acapulco. The body showed signs of torture and beating.
July 10 – A man between 20 and 25 years old, was shot outside the Central de Abastos, on Avenida El Quemado. He wore blue jeans and red shirt.
July 11 – An unidentified man was found shot dead in Acapulco. He wore blue jeans, blue shirt, and blue tennis shoes. Estimated at 40 years old.
July 12 – Public transport driver between 20 and 25 years old was shot dead in Acapulco.
That’s 25 since July 1st, by my count.
Sounds like a weekend in Chitcago.
These cartels are terrorist organizations possessing weapons of mass destruction. I say U.S. military intervention is called for. No big deal if we don’t locate any WMDs.
Utterly beyond belief. And the Estados Unidos de America sits idly by and blames the Second Amendment.
These deaths are more blood on the hands of Obama and Holder, a criminal mafia unto themselves.
Damn it! I was gonna say “It’s Obama’s Fault” but you beat me to it. Gotta get up early to beat you guys.
It was THE place to be during the 50’s and 60’s, where Liz Taylor and the rest of Hollywood partied. You can get good deals but you better know where exactly to go and not go beforehand.
Time to get tough on drugs! lol. Will the coming generations be able to go up against the pigs, banks, prison industrial complex and pharmaceutical industrial complex and legalize all drugs as is the moral and sane course of action? Doubtful, but one can hope.
Especially weed. over HALF of the cartels money comes from a stupid plant that if FAR less harmful than booze (which I like to drink).
Insane.
Blah blah blah. Potheads.
what Mehico needs is gun control!!!!!
Is that the coppertone girl in the surf there?
Crack kills and I’m sure more than a few people would kill for that crack
I was wondering if I was the only one to notice the moonshot…
Nope. Uh, what was this article about? All I remember is the “Coppertone girl.”
You’re kidding, right? You thought you might be the only one to notice that? This is TTAG. The only thing readers here would notice more quickly than a woman’s ass crack is bad trigger discipline…
And anti-second amendment, want to be gun grabbers, think we have a gun violence problem here in the US. No comparison UNTIL they get their way! God forbid.
If thugs thought the populace were armed as a rule, and wouldn’t hesitate to defend themselves, this senseless violence would cease.
The senseless violence would stop, but this is not violence inspired by passion, this is going to work for these guys. The 2nd amendment, or a Mexican equivalent won’t stop criminals from killing each other, only drug legalization will slow that down.
I used to do lighting for Corona beer events for 10 years in Mexico. 1998-2008. When I think how stupid we were in Acapulco, Ixtapa etc. back in those days it scares the f**k out of me.
Young and DUMB…and we lived to tell about it; somebody was looking out for me and my crew.
Who are we kidding? No place South of the US-Mexican border is safe.
It isn’t safe for Mexicans, much less clueless American tourists who are
dumb enough to spend their devalued money on a vacation to Mexico.
We need a better wall, just to force Mexico to reform their corrupt system,
and to stop their dumping criminals and unwanted poor, into our country.
We’ve acted as Mexico’s pressure release valve, and in doing so, we’ve sent
them a message that says we’re A-OK with them oppressing their people,
just as long as we can get a few million of them to do our yard work for us.
How many fewer murders, cartel executions, and kidnappings would be
happening, if the Mexican people could keep and bear arms?
I’ll say,…a whole lot fewer.
That wall of which you speak is a defense contractor gold mine/public money boondoggle. Can’t build a a big enough wall, and the border patrol doesn’t know what to do with the personnel they already have. Only so many federal employees can sit in trucks and read magazines. They’ve been forced to buy Predator drones, even though the old Cessnas are cheaper and more effective for the mission. And really, do you want a giant Berlin Wall on our border? Is that who we are? As usual, we gravitate toward the most expensive and least effective “solution.”
Should have been a DGU.
Would not go to Mexico even if it only cost $1.00,have not been there so I haven’t left anything there to go back for!As for gun trafficking by Eric Holder,might I say backfired trying to get gun control legislation passed,he should be swinging at the end of a rope!He and his boss,don’t just have blood of civilians on their hands,they are cop killers too!This is the worst I have ever seen come about in this country,Boobama is trying to ruin this country,and bring in the communist NWO!Be prepared and ready.Keep your powder dry.
I love Mexico, though I haven’t been there for over ten years. I speak enough Spanish to get by, the people are friendly, the food is great. I used to walk across the bridge into Jaurez for lunch when I would drive through El Paso. Those were the days. Mexico was corrupt back in the day, no doubt, but it wasn’t really very dangerous. Yes, if you got blind drunk and wandered into the wrong neighborhood, bad things might happen (like any U.S. city). Or you might make new friends. But you probably wouldn’t be gutted alive and left with your genitals stuffed in your mouth.
Now, it’s a war zone. Not all of that can be laid at the feet of U.S. policy, but a lot can. NAFTA gutted Mexico’s agricultural economy, and the “free trade zones” along the border, particularly around Jaurez, brought desperate campasinos north to work for slave wages in the factories that used to be in Detroit and Indiana. Last I heard, Juarez has the highest murder rate in the world, a lot of that young girls from the factories. The police were corrupted by the cartels, so the military moved in and things got even worse. Journalists who report on this are fair game, even if they live across the river. Several journalists have been killed. Charles Bowden has some good reporting on this http://www.amazon.com/Murder-City-Ciudad-Economys-Killing/dp/B004NSVFMW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374228034&sr=1-1
Illegal drugs are where the money’s at, and all that cartel money eventually flows to Wall Street or London, where it is washed, dried, and neatly ironed. Gulfstream jets and heavily armored Cadillac Escalades find their way back to Mexico. And yes, more than a few guns, though the cartels can obviously buy on the global market or from the Mexican Army. The U.S. border town gun store stuff is strictly small-time.
Why does this matter? Because the U.S. is headed the same way. Carlos Slim, possibly the richest man in the world, lives in Mexico, as do other ultra-rich oligarchs, and Mexico, like the U.S., is rich in natural resources. What are we going to look like in twenty years?
The Balkans.
YOU got to be NUTS to go to Mexico!
I used to do business in Mexico and vacationed there about four weeks a year, mostly in Cozumel. Great food, great people, great parties. Now, I’d rather go to Somalia.
Because of the arrest of Los Zetas chieftain Miguel Angel Treviño Morales earlier this week, I expect that things will get worse in Mexico just as things got worse in Colombia after the arrest of Pablo Escobar. We’ll see.
Freshly baked buns
was in Acapulco 10-15 years ago on a 4 day all expenses paid trip with about 200 other gringos from a very well known US company. They had shuttle buses from a “disco” back to the hotel leaving every 30 minutes and it was about 11pm when the one we were on was stopped by the “military” at a “check point”. One of the “soldiers” wanted to board the bus, I’m sure to shake us down for some american greenbacks, but the driver would not let him and hit the gas and drove thru the CP. I just knew we were going to get sprayed with 5.56 projectiles any second but that didn’t happen and we got back to the hotel and got the F out of there the next day. I’ll never set foot in that hell hole of a country again.